Bulls Sacrifice
by frostbitiron
Summary: In which the Iron Bull leaves the inquisitor with the hard decisions he dose not have the strength to make. A short recollection of the events told by Varric. SPOILERS FOR TRESSPASSER DLC


The inquisitor was a woman that had to make choices that no one else within the inquisition could. She had to trudge through mud up to her knees, bake in the scorching sand, fight off legions of corpse's if one of them stepped in a puddle. Mistakes were too easy to come by when the weight of hundreds of people were on your shoulders… even more when the world depended on your decisions to save them from a giant hole tearing apart the sky.

Despite everything that weighed on her shoulders, it was the people she valued most, and not the inquisition. It was one decision that haunted her on the battlements. The decision to choose the Dreadnaught over the Bull's Chargers. To choose the inquisition over the people. She had done it once… and never again could she bare to have that weight tearing at her heart. Tiny could not make the decision… and so she had to or else they would have lost both the chargers and the dreadnought. The Iron Bull Hardened after that, began following the Qun a bit more closely, kept to himself in the back of the tavern when he wasn't needed. The inquisitor wasn't the same after that either. She kept to herself… and she began spending a lot of time with Tiny.

She never expected a thank you for any of the deeds she had done, Dorian was keen to remind her on many occasions, and she didn't seem to mind. She didn't ask for any of this crap. The inquisitor was only trying to do her job so that she could move on with her life, and in defeating Corypheus she had for a short while.

Two years had come and passed, and we were all hearing stories of the glory of the inquisition at the winter palace. How confident the inquisitor must have been in her abilities to charge in with only a handful of her best men because they couldn't take the battlements- how she and her companions saved the grey wardens single handedly and got them to safety- how they all fell into the fade- How she made the decision to leave the Hero of Kirkwall, my best friend, behind to fight the nightmare demon. How she had to sacrifice one of our greatest warriors for the good of humanity.

But what they don't tell you… was how Bull had to pull her by the arms, how he had to hoist her over his shoulder and literally carry her out of the Fade Rift before it closed because she was right their with Hawk the entire time- How she thought she could take the place of Hawk against that terrible nightmare demon- how she tried so hard to save Hawk for me- for the inquisition- for all of them. Bull made that decision for her… because she was making the wrong one. The Inquisitor was the one who could close the rift in the sky. Not Hawke. The Iron Bull was the one who made the hard decision that day. He was the one who held her as she shook and screamed and pounded on his chest, and he only held her tighter in his arms and said 'it's going to be alright Kadan.' He pulled her together enough so she could face the inquisition's forces, so she could tell them that they had been victorious.

The final battle of corypheus came up frequently, how that should have been the moment the inquisition disbanded- how two years later they had no need for them, yet they still glorified the stories of what actually happened.. How her armies were to the south- how they would have inevitably died if they had marched back with her and her advisors. We were glad that they were not there that day as well… we had lost too many men to this fight as it was. Hell, we lost Chuckles, and he would have been damn well convenient with all of the elven crap we faced after we went inside that mirror.

But none of us expected the Ashkaari to call upon 'Hissrad' to call upon bull the way that she had so pointedly. The inquisitor seemed fine, until she heard Iron Bull speak..

"Understood Ma'am." The inquisitor's face fell. "Change of plans. Nothing personal… Bas." His battleaxe rose up and into the air, and tears began to prickle at the edges of the inquisitor's eyes. After all they had been through together… This was where it was to end.

The inquisitor had turned, her feet had planted to the spot, and Bull's battle axe came crashing down towards her. I put a bolt in his shoulder, Bianca already drawn from all the damn qunari we had been fighting off, and his swing missed the inquisitor by only a fraction. Iron Bull, no matter the enemy, never missed. I think he did it on purpose. There was a burning in her eyes, and for as long as i live, i never want to see it again.

Even if he couldn't kill her, he had made his decision as the other Qunari swarmed around us. He had chosen the Qun over the Inquisition.

Every time we got even the slightest inkling that a dragon was in one of the inquisitions territories, she picked up bull- and off they went Dragon slaying. I asked her about it once, why she always insisted to take Bull. She said it was because it made him happy. She had smiled, and she had cast her gaze to the floor. I didn't have to see the dusting of pink on her cheeks to know she had it bad for the Iron Bull… It wasn't until after the battle at Adament that they actually got together instead of just hooking up in that beaten down room above skyholds tavern.

The Dragon's tooth weighed heavily on her neck as her chest heaved, the inquisitors staff had been shattered by one of Bulls swings in the midst of battle, and she had used the broken piece like a spear, faining towards his blind side and ducking low, just as he had told them to do if he ever got possessed by a demon. She pierced his heart, and he had grabbed the end of the staff, heaving her away with his good arm with rage billowing out of his chest and fury in his eyes. She was thrown into the opposing wall, and she stumbled over the corpses of qunari that littered the ground around them. He reached up, grasping the end of the staff as if he were going to break it in two and charge back at her- "KATOH!" She screamed at him.

It was then as the yell reverberated through my ears, as i saw the rage on his face fall that i knew he had seen the inquisitors expression as well. He had seen the fire in her eyes, the magic crackling around her threatening to destroy anything and everything in its radius. I knew then he saw the betrayal written across her face… and he just… pulled out the staff. Fell to his knees… and died.

Just like that he died and didn't put up a fight. The inquisitor sobbing, screaming 'Katoh!' at his body as she clenched her fists at her sides. He died because she made the hard decision… to kill him… Because he couldn't do it, because he left the decision to her... just as he had when she made the decision to sacrifice his chargers.

The inquisition is disbanded… and despite all that shit that happened- the massacre of the qunari and dragon when the inquisitor finally lost it- when she finally stopped screaming at Bull's body long enough to move on and blow those bastards up with the Anchor on her hand- Chuckles betrayed us too… after all of that the inquisitor disbanded the inquisition… and even though she works from the shadows as the inquisitor, she let the nobles of Orlais and Ferelden believe she returned to mercenary work… As far as they know… She's just a woman. A woman with a Dragon's tooth hanging above her breast.


End file.
